Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-05-28

Previous to this time the prisoners got
water from the Branch" or general
sink. When this spring broke out how
ever, Captain Wirz considerably allowed
them to sink a barrel, aud conduct the
water within the :" dead line, and here the
prisoners would stand in line by the hun
dreds, awaiting their turn to get drink of
fresh water. 1t was the one great blessing
of the pen, and it has never ceased to flow.
Its waters bubble forth to-day as fresh and
sparkling as in those times of suffering.
The appearance of the spring of course, is
changed. Twenty years of ceaseless flow
ing has worked it back little higher up
the hill, since the old barrel which the
prisoners sunk soon disappeared after the
pr,SGn was abandoned. 1t is nov some
+. twenty feet from the perceptble outline of
the stockade. For time il was protected
by large pine stump, but it is now sur
rounded by neat wood curbing about two
and BALI feet high, with a semi circular
opening on the lower side, through which
the water constantly flows.
Before the spring broke forth the prison
ers endeavored to find fresh water by sink
ing wells in the hillsides, but to no avail
Many such excavations were made, some
OF them forty or fifty feet deep Several OF
these are still to be SEEN almost IS perfect
L
all dry, since whatever water runs into
them from the surface is rapidly absorbed
by the sandy soil. They are constant
source Of danger, yet the careless hus-
bandry OF the South does not fill them up
OF course, the dead line" low fence
eighteen feet from the stockade made by
mailing a fOur-inch strip of board on low
posts about twenty feet apart. has wholly
disappeared. Not the slightest trace is left
OF il, since it gas lightly constructed.
Though more than twenty years have
passed. the burrows or dugouts of the
prisoners are still discernible. 1t is strange
what grotesque humor will crop out in the
midst of suffering. 1t seems as though
there is law by which humor asserts it
self as q protest against despair from the
very depths of suffering heart These
dugouts-mere kennels were the BOYS
=" brownstone fronts" The hillsides, es-
pecially on the north slope, are in places
deeply corrugated. Great waShouts are to
be seen where the prisoners burrows have
caved in. 1t viii take a long time for the
influences of weather and shiftless farming
to obliterate them.
Here and there, also, is to be seen mar
row, long depression in the ground leading
toward the stockade. These are caused by
the falling in Of the earth over the prison
ers' tunnels, which were excavated with a
view 10 escape. And escape some $50 of
the men did. Periodically the Confederates
would drive heavily-loaded wagon over
the space between the stockade and the
dea9-line. with view to breaking in the
soil and discovering the tunnels. Besides
this, they probed the ground with sharp
spikes for the same purpose. These little
lines of indenture there are eloquent with
the hopes and, efforts that too often were
unavailing-
Relics of prison life are constantly being
exhRmed-bits of pots and kettles, knives,
spoi Us, canteen covers, and the like. These
are mostly found on the sandy slopes of
the hills, since the soil of the marsh has
scar cely been disturbed. Upon the whole,
the place has the air of a peaceful rural
district One would readily see that it had
been the scene of war operations But
there is nothing to suggest the horrors Of
thirteen months cf prison experience, ex-
cept to one who can rightly read aud inter-